Members of the suffrage movement in the UK carry arrows to honour the suffragists who served time in Holloway prison, London. Image credit: Julie Jordan Scott

​As a borderline Generation Xer with a university education, who wasn’t forced into marriage, chose when to become a mother, is in good health and was encouraged to do any job I wanted, I could be forgiven (and I am sure that I am not alone) in somewhat naively thinking that women’s equality had more or less been achieved, give or take certain non-Western practices in parts of Africa and the Middle East. The suffragettes got us the vote. The feminists of the 60s and 70s challenged perceptions about women and work, domestic violence, and reproductive rights. And, the latter-day movement of the 90s widened the focus to include the LGBT community and women of colour. I would be wrong of course.

Poster showing the main focus of the latter-day feminist movement: uniting women of all race. Image credit: Chelsea Valentin Brown at soirart.tumblr

Girls are prevented from going to school for a number of reasons: poor families prioritise their son’s education; household obligations; abusive or violent classroom environments; inadequate water and sanitation facilities to go to the toilet with dignity and privacy - particularly when menstruating; child marriage; and female genital mutilation.

Empowering women around the world to have rights equal to men is a benefit to us all, socially, politically and economically. Improving girls’ access to education positively influences the lives of generations to come. Women’s considerable knowledge on the management and use of natural resources within the community are integral to the battle against climate change. Investing in access to sexual and reproductive information and services for women has a ripple effect on other areas of her life: she knows when she is safe from sexual violence, that she can complete her education and get a job, or stand in a political election.

Perhaps then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, when speaking to the Fourth Women's Conference in Beijing, China in 1995, said it best:

"As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled, subjected to violence in and outside their homes - the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realised."